A bearing arrangement is known from German Patentschrift No. DE 28 48 813 C2. This document describes a universal joint, with a journal spider which connects the yoke arms of two joint yokes. On the journal of the spider, bearing bodies are provided which contains rolling bodies or sliding bodies which are held in holes of the yoke arms and are axially fixed. The bearing bodies are sealed relative to the body of the journal yoke via an elastic seal. To facilitate the supply of the bearing point with lubricant, the seal is made as a separate bottom of the bearing bush and the middle part is made as a thin-walled membrane with a reinforced outside edge. The membrane arches to the outside in the radial direction when the bearing bush is pressed in by the pressure of the lubricant which is located beforehand in the bearing bush so that the lubricant supply is under preliminary tension.
With this configuration, lubricant is continuously pressed into the universal joint bearing in small amounts. Thus, the bearings are supplied with a sufficient amount of lubricant over the entire running time.
Similar approaches are known from German Patentschrift No. DE 28 48 814 C2 and German Patentschrift No. DE 26 18 536 C2.
In many cases, this known concept is not sufficient for lubrication of a bearing point. Generally speaking, new lubricant must be supplied at fixed intervals to the bearing point in order to ensure optimum conditions for the operation of the bearing. Therefore, at fixed maintenance intervals, lubricant is generally delivered via the lubrication nipple to the bearing point by a grease gun or the like. This constitutes not only a considerable maintenance effort, but moreover entails the danger that upon relubrication too much or too little lubricant will be brought to the bearing point.